


The Wrath of the Lam

by volunteerfd



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Diners, F/M, Humor, Light Angst, M/M, Passive-aggression, Sharing a Bed, Shopping, Twilight References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-15
Updated: 2019-09-15
Packaged: 2020-10-18 23:22:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20647400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/volunteerfd/pseuds/volunteerfd
Summary: Will is better suited to life on the lam than Hannibal is--literally better suited. His skin does not bristle from synthetic fiber and he does not have deep-seated aesthetic objections to cheap plaid. Will knows his way around a Target.***Will and Hannibal's first day on the run after leaving Bedelia's is filled with passive-aggressiveness, diner burgers, trashy talk shows, and Hannibal reading Twilight. But it's OK as long as they're together, or some corny nonsense like that.





	The Wrath of the Lam

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to twentyghosts for looking this over despite Hannigram not being Science Bros. :)

Will is better suited to life on the lam than Hannibal is--literally better suited. His skin does not bristle from synthetic fiber and he does not have deep-seated aesthetic objections to cheap plaid. Will knows his way around a Target. He has no problem shoving comfy Larges into his red shopping cart, glancing up to see if Hannibal will follow suit with XL’s. But Hannibal has not even laid one questioning finger on a shirt, and his face has melted from imperviously quizzical to disdainful. Hannibal is used to “target” referring to a person; he is even somewhat accustomed to being a target himself. But Target as a place that sells clothes, snacks, camping supplies, personal care products, home goods, cookware, and everything else? That has never crossed his mind.

“Never been to Targè before?” Will asks. The joke is overused and wine-mommish, but Will cannot resist how appropriate it is to mock Hannibal’s sensibilities.

“Never had reason to,” Hannibal replies, in a voice that implies he still doesn’t. 

“Good thing you’re open to new experiences. What about this?” Will suggests, holding up a striped collared shirt. Hannibal sneers. They are each about to ask if the other one is kidding--if Hannibal really thinks he can remain undetected in sharply tailored Italian suits and if Will really expects Hannibal to let mass-produced polyester touch his skin. Hannibal would rather keep wearing the cashmere sweater Bedelia had given him, in the heat of summer, for weeks on end, than purchase a Merona shirt.

Will dumps a pile of clothes in the cart on Hannibal’s behalf. “Why don’t you go get toiletries?” He gestures to the fluorescent-lit rows of Dove and Pantene. There’s also Tresemme if Hannibal feels more comfortable with an upscale, European-sounding brand.

Hannibal squints towards the shampoos, which are located between snacks and school supplies. He does not deign to go farther.

“Surely there is a compromise,” Hannibal says, “between hedonic pleasure and...this.”

“If you don’t behave, we’ll go to Walmart.”

“What is Walmart,” Hannibal says flatly. He does not actually want to know what Walmart is. He just wants Will to know that Walmart is outside his frame of reference. Will does not answer. He proceeds to the toiletries and Hannibal follows behind.

“You want orange or pink?” Will holds up two bottles of VO5, making sure Hannibal’s nose crinkles at the radioactive colors, before tossing one into the cart. “If you’re going to insist on the lifestyle to which you are accustomed, I would fare much better if we split up. Actually, we’d be harder to catch if we separate, regardless.” 

“Separation would negate all we have worked for, no?”

“Worked for, worked for…_I_ worked primarily for freedom. _You_ worked primarily to be with me. This is my second-place prize.” In other circumstances, they would be having this conversation in Hannibal’s study, surrounded by old books and Freudian couches. Jail also had the proper levels of austerity and solemnity. They would not have to side-step rambunctious toddlers running through the store, making vroom vroom sounds for their toy trucks.

“And if we split up, you will be left with nothing. No first-place prize, no second-place prize...”

“No whining,” Will mutters under his breath, just loud enough for Hannibal to hear. “I’m getting Cheez-Its.”

Cheez-Its are also beyond the scope of Hannibal’s knowledge, but he looks at the box and the price sticker. “Three dollars for a box of empty calories? Shouldn’t we be more careful with our money and nutrition?”

“Yeah. I’m getting Cheez-Its.” It takes all of Will’s restraint not to tear into the box in the store and shove fistfuls of crackers into his mouth, but the unwanted attention from shoppers would not be worth the momentary gratification of Hannibal’s disgust. The last thing Will needs is some busybody Baby Boomer etching his face in her mind. He will have other opportunities to irk Hannibal.

He spies a selection of first aid kits, from travel-sized to bulk. A good thing to have, given their habits. Then again, a collection of gauze and band-aids would be as effective against their lifestyles as Scotch tape on a burst pipe. Regardless, he puts one--the largest size--in the cart. 

The book section is across the way and Hannibal spies the titles from afar. He is surely disappointed by the selection: grinning self-help gurus and sunset-covered romances, long-dead authors whose popular names were being used by a factory of ghostwriters. Worst of all is Frederick Chilton, air-brushed to high heaven and smirking in the cover photo of his latest book, _Slaying the Dragon_. As always, Chilton has confused smugness with confidence, but at this point, Will can’t help but think he’s earned it, damn it: his fame, his recoveries, his book deals, his talk show. If you survive organ removal, a bullet to the face, mutilation, and full-body burns, you deserve to be anointed King Cockroach.

Hannibal ventures over and plucks a book from the shelf--a black book with two pale hands holding an apple. He examines the blurb on the back cover.

“A vampire novel,” he says.

“Yeah. It’s _Twilight._” Will envies the blithe circles Hannibal ran in that enabled him to avoid even hearing about _Twilight_ and Walmart.

“It sounds very romantic.”

Will can’t tell if Hannibal is being particularly dry. He wants to comment about empty calories and careful spending, but the thought of Hannibal reading fucking _Twilight_ is too tempting to resist.

“I think you’ll like it,” Will says casually. Hannibal places it in the cart. It will either be entertainment for the both of them, or a waste of $9.

Will rounds the corner, unknowingly straight into the Pet Care section before he can steel himself. He chokes on his breath. The squeak toys that would be demolished in a day, the fifty-pound bags of dog food that would be devoured in three. His idiot dogs would crawl into the empty bag, snuffling the bottom for crumbs. Will freezes stock-still, and Hannibal places a light hand on the small of his back.

“Your dogs have an uncanny ability to survive,” Hannibal says. “We have been shot and stabbed, kidnapped and tortured. Your house has been broken into numerous times. Still, your dogs have remained unscathed. I have no doubt that they will continue to be safe.”

“Safer than with me.” He sounds bitter, even though he shouldn’t. Safe is safe. Safe is better than unsafe. Still, why couldn’t they be safe with him?

“I think we have all the supplies we need, correct?”

After a moment, Will nods shakily.

Check-out will be its tribulation. With their luck, they will be at the mercy of defunct coupon scanners and endless price checks, stuck behind dozens of frazzled moms letting their profoundly ungifted children help them pack. He anticipates Hannibal bristling beside him, stuck together in their shared impatience, throwing themselves off the cliff of mundane annoyance.

* * *

Unlike Hannibal, Will has no issues ordering a burger off a diner menu, picking it up with two hands, and chomping into it. Meanwhile, Hannibal still has the menu in front of him. He flips the laminated pages back and forth as if he’s a helpless undergrad studying Hegel. It was either this or McDonald’s. Hannibal does not know how lucky he is.

Will lets out a moan of pleasure just to spite his dining companion. “Nothing beats a diner burger,” Will says, his mouth full. Ketchup drips onto his fingers and he lets it linger for a moment before giving it a cursory wipe with a napkin. 

“You do not know what is in that,” Hannibal mutters. Will raises an incredulous eyebrow. Hannibal meets his gaze. “Say what you will about my methods, I sourced all my ingredients.” Hannibal looks back down at the menu. “Do I go with the bulk processed chicken fingers? The wilted iceberg lettuce salad? Their interpretation of souvlaki?”

“Fingers. Goes with your motif.”

Hannibal’s glare exudes murder. Will dips a French fry in ketchup.

The waitress returns. She’s been back and forth, refilling their water glasses, asking Will if his burger is good and asking Hannibal if he wants anything. Hannibal and Will might be the first gay couple she’s ever seen and certainly the most striking. It would require makeup and prosthetics far beyond their resources to hide Hannibal’s exotic features, plus Hannibal does nothing to smother his intensity. The waitress is beguiled, cannot help but sneak glances at him, and overwhelmed--cannot help but look away. She will surely remember them.

“Have you decided?” she asks, pleasant and nervous. His fussiness will stand out in her mind, too. A man with the manner of a panther and coldly inscrutable eyes, who studied a diner menu with clenched fists? Yeah, they were sure indiscreet. 

“He’ll have a burger. Medium rare.” Will says. His plan is to finish it when Hannibal refuses. The waitress nods, scribbles it down, and scurries away. She might not remember a simple burger order, but she’ll certainly remember them. “You’ll expand your palate.”

There’s nothing left on Will’s plate except coleslaw, which he saved for last in the hopes that it would disappear. But it’s still there, and there’s nothing else except for awkward silence.

“Want some?” Will offers, just to be polite and irritating.

“I have eaten real koolsla in the Netherlands, made with bright green cabbages picked from their patches, immediately shredded and bathed in fresh buttermilk. I am not interested in mayonnaise cabbage that has been sitting in a metal vat.” He pauses, then adds, “I was not a fan of koolsla, either.”

“Have you ever thought about enjoying life’s simple pleasures?”

“I enjoy you, Will.” 

Will responds with a brief mocking half-smile. “I’m serious. It’s burgers and Target from here on out. You’re gonna have to get used to it. Were you expecting a fine dining road trip? A deluxe portable kitchen?”

“I always manage.” Hannibal is right: even in jail, he managed to feast on haute cuisine. But this is different. Surely Hannibal can feel the shift in his fortune, too.

“And what if you _don’t?_” Will says a little too harshly as the waitress slides the burger in front of Hannibal. When the waitress departs, Will lowers his voice and leans closer. “We have to act...normal.” The irony of Will telling anyone to lighten up is not lost on him. 

“I am nothing if not adaptable.” 

But Hannibal did not adapt so much as walk through the world with an invisible barrier, with disturbances unknowingly bending around the forcefield. And if something were unchangeably perturbing, Hannibal would simply eliminate it, which was not the same as adapting. It’s a miracle—a demonic miracle—that the Chesapeake Ripper remained undetected for so long, wearing clothes that accentuated his distinct silhouette and expensive colognes that, despite their subtlety, left the aroma of a thousand tuxedoed angels dispersed in the air.

The cracks showed today: the subtle sneers and snarls. His bristling, almost imperceptible to the untrained eye, but unable to elude Will’s detection. Hannibal knows he is out of his element. Will knows. Hannibal knows that Will knows. And, as if to prove Will wrong, Hannibal takes a bite of the burger.

His mouth freezes around the meat. Clearly, he expected to be able to chew, swallow, and prove a point, but his eyes glance frantically at the napkin dispenser as he calculates how rude it would be to spit it out. It’s almost comical how flustered he is, that cheap ground chuck might be his undoing.

Will hooks a finger around the basket and slides it over to himself. They’re in lean times, and Will has suddenly been granted a ravenous appetite, a hunger that happens to be entwined with his desire to make Hannibal miserable. No sense letting food go to waste or unenjoyed. If Hannibal gets hungry, there are Cheez-Its in the car.

* * *

The motel sheets are several steps down from Will’s own ratty bedding, and surely a cliff plummet from Hannibal’s expensive linens. Will expects to wake up covered in bed bug bites and maybe even mysterious rashes--not dog hair, though, he notes with sadness. He lays down on the scratchy bedsheets. This is what it means to be on the lam: cheap motel rooms and deprivation. 

Besides the young adult vampire novel, the only other form of entertainment is TV--a TV from a forgotten time, chunky and box-like. There are teenagers alive today who do not know televisions used to be made like this.

Both Freds--Chilton and Lounds--flicker from the staticky screen. Freddie looks like a white alien mass, washed out from poor reception. It’s hard to tell how Chilton really looks, post-Dracarys, given the poor color saturation on the television and the cheaply Photoshopped book covers. The intrepid reporter is a frequent guest on the renowned psychiatrist’s show. There are rumors of a behind-the-scenes affair. Will’s glad he’s not around for their fireworks.

Hannibal emerges from the bathroom where he ostensibly lathered with hard white soap and sticky, thick shampoo from a plastic squeeze jar. Changed out of his cashmere sweater, his last sartorial vestige from his past life. In cheap boxers and a white tee, Hannibal looks like he could be someone’s doofy husband, a dorky dad on a family vacation gone wrong. The illusion will be shattered if he opens his mouth or coaxes his facial features back behind their usual shroud instead of their current blank openness. 

Hannibal slides into bed because what else is there to do now, at night, off the beaten road? Will focuses his attention on the screen. Freddie says something, and she and Chilton share a laugh. If Will had to guess, there is some truth to the rumor that they are hooking up. They would each think they are settling and resent the other for it, oblivious to the fact that they are perfectly matched. The corners of Will’s mouth twitch upward, unbidden. 

Chilton’s response fragments into incomprehensible chirrups. Their bodies, the couches, the bright blue background common to talk shows, blips into striated waves of color. A strange mild dissociation washes over Will, as if the glitching figures from his past life are laughing at him, looking out from their L.A. studio to jeer at the Murder Husbands’ sleazebag motel room across the country.

They’re not, of course. They’re reacting to clips of viral videos before switching gears to the serious national crises du jour--this week, it’s kidnappings, carcinogenic figs, and compulsive bowlers.

But first, some commercials.

“Have you read this book before?” Hannibal asks, timed uncannily for the commercial break. He’s a handful of pages into _Twilight_. Will is surprised he hasn’t finished it already.

“No.”

“I highly recommend it. The author expertly captures the ennui of a dreary world.”

Will jolts up on his elbows so that he can look, disbelievingly, at Hannibal. “So you relate to Bella?” He hasn’t read the book, but his own fortress is not as impenetrable to cultural osmosis as Hannibal’s.

Hannibal does not look up. “Of course. Who else? She is the perfect cipher, a blank slate onto which you can project only what you want to see.”

Will settles back down. “Right. That does sound like you.” 

“I have not met the vampire yet, if that is whom you presume I should identify with.”

Will wants to say something snarky that wouldn’t reveal just how much of the pop cultural phenomenon seeped into his consciousness. Instead, he rolls over--away from Hannibal--and turns off his lamp.

“Good night,” he says gruffly. He stays awake with his eyes closed for some time. The image of Hannibal’s placid face reading utter tripe is etched on the back of his eyelids. He can only envision Hannibal in a suit, even though he is centimeters away in cheap underclothes. He realizes he’ll miss Hannibal’s elegant armor and expensive cologne, too.

Soon, Hannibal closes the book; Will can hear it being set on the nightstand, and the click of the other lamp. Hannibal rustles next to him, not further into bed but propped just above Will’s ear. It would not be surprising if Hannibal produced a knife or pressed a firm, suffocating hand against Will’s mouth. Will can’t help but flinch and shift, even though he’s supposed to be asleep.

“I am happy to be on this journey with you, Will,” Hannibal whispers, his voice pouring into Will’s ear like poisoned honey.

He can hear the smile in Hannibal’s voice, the genuine fondness that Hannibal has let seep through. Will in danger--not from Hannibal, at least. Hannibal settles beside him, and Will can’t help but smile, too.


End file.
